


Stateside Assignment

by gracefultree



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-17 21:10:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13667349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracefultree/pseuds/gracefultree
Summary: Mark Snow brings Kara and John to New York for a dreaded Stateside job following a tech billionaire who's remarkably able to avoid being tailed.





	Stateside Assignment

**Author's Note:**

> Unlike most of my other works, there's no slash... !!!  
> I thought it would be interesting to explore what might happen if John became aware of Harold *before* the ferry bombing and what their relationship might be like if Harold were slightly more honest from the beginning.

John hated Stateside assignments. First, they were behind enemy lines twice-over and wouldn’t have backup if they were compromised. Second, Kara and Mark were more likely to be tracking his movements lest he try to contact Jess. Third, it was far too tempting to try to walk away. 

He’d resigned himself to staying away from Jess. They knew about her and wouldn’t hesitate to kill her if they thought he would be compromised by his feelings for her. He knew that, so he kept any lingering loss buttoned up behind many layers of feigned-indifference and self-deception. 

What he hadn’t resigned himself to was doing this for the rest of his life. He’d joined up with the Army to protect the country, to protect people like the little girl down the street who’d been blown up in a terrorist attack on vacation in Egypt with her parents. Mostly thanks to the CIA, he’d become a killer — a cold-blooded, premeditated killer. An assassin. A murderer. 

He hated it. 

Oh, he knew it was necessary. _Someone_ had to protect the country, _someone_ had to kill the terrorists, and he was very good at it, but he still hated it. He knew how to torture information out of people, and he was very good at that, too, but he wished that he could make the deaths as clean as possible. Not for his own sake, or for fear of getting caught and abandoned by the Company, but for his victims. He didn’t want them to have to suffer. He suffered enough after their deaths that they didn’t deserve to suffer before them. 

The current assignment, however, didn’t include deaths, so far. Just routine surveillance of a tech billionaire and reconnaissance about who he interacted with and what he did with his time. It was turning into a much more difficult task then any of them expected. 

First, any bugs they planted in his office were found and destroyed within hours. Second, he almost never went home, so the bugs there weren’t giving them any useful information. Third, they couldn’t bluejack his phone or hack his computer — his technology far outstripped their own, not surprising for a man who founded an international software giant. They didn’t have much luck with his employees, either, as all the ones that spent any time in his presence also had the technology. They settled on going through his social media contacts and doing background checks on anyone they could find that he’d ever interacted with. 

“He hasn’t been at the office in over a week, according to his secretary,” John reported. 

“I’ve been tailing him all day and he keeps disappearing,” Kara added. “How a man who walks so confidently one moment can disappear into thin air the next is beyond me. It’s as if he's had counter-surveillance training.” 

“Where would he have gotten that?” Mark wondered, flipping through a folder on the man’s life history. “There’s nothing here to indicate he had the time for that!” 

John settled in to watch the mark’s apartment for the night. It should be a slow night, as this assignment usually was. He never had guests, never invited people over. That’s _if _he came home, which was a big if.__

____

____

Their man arrived home at a little past nine, walking gingerly and holding an ice-pack to his shoulder. John perked up and snapped a few pictures. Twenty minutes later a short, mousey man arrived at the building and John turned up the intake on his microphones when he went to their mark’s door and knocked. John ran through the list of social media contacts and didn’t find the friend. Then the mark said his name, Harold, and John knew who he was: Harold Wren, worked in insurance, former MIT classmate, got together with their mark once a quarter for lunch or dinner; not one of his closest friends, and not one they’d spent much time on researching once they ascertained that he was who he said he was. 

. 

. 

. 

John picked himself off the pavement and made his way to the triage center in a school gymnasium. The explosion had been bad by civilian standards, though nothing compared to some that John had lived through. He tapped his ear to check in with Mark and Kara, but the line was dead — his phone destroyed when he hit the ground. He chucked the pile of plastic and circuits as unnecessary. He knew where their safe house was and how to contact them when he was done here. 

He snagged a first responder’s jacket from a car trunk and put on gloves, blending in with the other people at the gym so he could case the place and look for their mark. 

He found the mark’s friend first, unconscious on a gurney and bleeding. By the time the mark himself showed up, there wasn’t anything to do — DOA. The Harold Wren from John’s researches wouldn’t have had a reason to be anywhere near their mark today, not after seeing him the week before. They weren’t that close. And yet, he’d been on his way to join their mark to meet with a reporter about something… why would an insurance guy who spent so little time with their mark join him with a reporter? Was Wren a silent business partner? Were they lovers? Is _this_ why they’d been sent to watch their mark — some secret conspiracy or terrorist plot between him and his closer-than-they-thought friend? 

John spotted the government officials easily and melted into the background to watch them assure themselves of his mark’s death. They glanced around, but didn’t seem aware of the connection with Wren, leaving him in John’s capable hands. Good. 

. 

. 

. 

Despite being injured while John was not, Mr. Wren was inordinately difficult to tail. John managed, though, finding himself sneaking into a derelict library, gun at the ready. 

“Did you know?” Wren hissed, and John plastered himself to the wall, peeking around to see who the man was meeting. 

The friend was alone at a table, facing a computer screen. John circled the room until he could see the monitor, finding their mark’s face and the words “NON-RELEVANT” writ large. John frowned. He needed more information. 

Their assignment had been to gather data. It wasn’t John’s place to wonder why, but seeing another government agency interested in their mark’s _death_ made him think more critically. 

It wouldn’t be the first time two government agencies worked at cross-purposes. Yet when John’s usual assignments ended in death and another agency got there first — the explosion hadn’t been an accident, not with their mark close enough to be caught in the explosion like that, not to mention the reporter he’d been there to meet — he considered reevaluating his mission. 

The CIA wasn’t exactly hesitant to have him kill on domestic soil, and yet they’d only been ordered to watch. 

He thought about Jess and the danger to her life at simply having known him years ago. He thought about why he’d joined the army. He thought about all the lives lost that day. 

He raised his gun. 

“Back away from the computer,” John ordered, pitching his voice to carry with calm authority. 

The man turned in his chair, one hand raised to clutch at his bleeding neck. He couldn’t see John where he remained in the shadows, but he must have seen the glint off his gun, because he obediently rolled his chair away from the table. 

“Who are you?” Wren asked, his voice curious yet resigned and full of pain. He probably thought he was about to die for the second time that day. “Homeland Security? FBI? ISA?” 

John stepped forward into the light, interested that the man knew about the ISA. Not many civilians did. Not many operatives outside the ISA did, for that matter. He didn’t miss the spark of recognition in Wren’s eyes and kept his expression neutral by force of will alone. How could this little man know his face? 

“Ah, CIA,” Wren declared, a bit more confident. “Have you come to put a bullet through my head?” 

“You’re sounding a little paranoid, friend,” John responded, not wanting to give away that he knew Wren’s name. 

“For good reason, Mr. Reese.” 

John blinked. 

“That _is_ the name you prefer these days, isn’t it? The one your handler, Ms. Stanton gave you?” 

“Tell me, _Mr. Wren_ , what kind of man leaves a brand-new fiancee sobbing in a triage station assuming he’s dead?” John countered, hoping to startle truth from the man. 

“You may call me Mr. Finch,” Wren responded, his voice free of inflection. If he was surprised at John’s knowledge, he wasn’t showing it. If he was embarrassed or ashamed of being caught leaving his fiancee, he wasn’t showing it either. “As you left your ex-girlfriend in an airport terminal after she begged you to ask her to wait for you, I’m not sure you’re in a position to ask such a question.” 

“Who _are_ you?” John demanded, discomfited. Already he had two names for the man, Wren and Finch. How many aliases did he have? What was his story? What would his handlers want him to do? 

Easy: They’d want information. Then for John to kill him, but John didn’t want to go there if he could help it. At the very least, he’d have to find out how Finch knew John’s name and face. 

“How do you _know_ that?” 

“Let’s just say that the CIA doesn’t have a monopoly on surveillance.” Finch settled back in his chair, affecting a relaxed pose belying the stress of his current situation facing an armed assailant. He dropped his hand to his lap, allowing John to see the blood on his fingers. “Would you be interested in a career change? The chance to _save_ people, rather than kill them?” 

“Are you kidding me?” John blurted, trying to keep the sudden intrigue from his voice. What would Finch’s pitch be? How would he try to convince John to give up his job? Would it be worth trying to escape the clutches of the Company? 

“The CIA and the government have lied to you. Used you. They’ve made you kill for them, in the name of protecting your country, and yet you have no idea if all of those individuals were, in fact, traitors and terrorists. They’ve tried to turn you into an unfeeling monster, an assassin.” 

“Your point?” John felt a tingling at the base of his spine and recognized it as unease. This man, this strange, little man somehow knew what John thought in the dead of night. He knew John’s fears, his insecurities. 

He knew John wanted out. 

“Come work for me, Mr. Reese. I promise you that I will never ask you to kill. I will never lie to you. I will never force you to leave behind those you love.” 

John frowned, his mind working a mile a minute. Possibilities opened in front of him, pathways he never thought he’d see. “How did you know him?” he demanded, indicating the picture of their mark, still on the computer screen. He couldn’t focus on how the man knew him, knew Kara. He was already in over his head without orders or connection to the Company, with a strange hope blooming in his heart. The man glanced over briefly. 

“Nathan? He’s been my best friend for over thirty years,” he answered, his voice wistful and sad. “My business partner. I suppose you were part of the group sent to take him out?” 

“You know so much about me and you don’t know that?” 

“It was my understanding you were on assignment in Spain,” Finch said. “Though I wouldn’t put it past your employers to change their orders without notice.” He paused. “I last looked into your whereabouts five days ago.” 

John tilted his head and regarded Finch more closely. He’d been telling the truth. John was very good as sniffing out the truth, and Finch seemed sincere. He decided to try telling the truth, see what else he could get from the man by using his own tactic. 

“We were sent to observe. I don’t know who sent the others.” 

Finch nodded, grimaced in pain, and clutched his neck again. 

“The Company doesn’t like when agents go rogue or try to leave,” John stated. “How would you get me out? How could you guarantee my safety, that they wouldn’t come after me?” 

Finch paused, his eyes going blank for a moment. No, not blank, his eyes were moving rapidly under lowered lids, and John suddenly understood that he was thinking, planning, testing ideas silently in his head before voicing them. 

“We’d need to fake your death, of course,” Finch said finally. “Simply, with no questions about your survival. I have the funds and resources to buy off certain people, acquire what we might need to make it look real beyond a shadow of a doubt.” His eyes looked over John, assessing him. He shook his head, wincing again as the movement caused him pain. “I’m in too much pain to come up with a good enough plan right now. You’d have to give me time.” 

John holstered his gun. “Let me see your injury,” he ordered. 

“I suppose if you wanted to kill me, you’d have done it already,” Finch mused. He turned his chair, allowing John access to his neck. 

With quick steps John crossed the room. He prodded Finch’s neck gently, assessing. Finch gasped in pain. “You were thrown in the explosion?” 

“Yes.” 

“We need to get you to a hospital. I don’t like the look of this. You might have a spinal injury.” 

“ _We_ need to get me to a hospital, Mr. Reese? Have you accepted my offer?” 

“If I don’t report back in twelve more hours, they’re going to send someone to find me, but I can go off-grid that long. My phone’s already trashed. I left it at the bomb site and I’m not wearing any other trackers. You need time to come up with a reliable plan, I need to keep them off the scent. I’ll give you a way to contact me. If I trust your plan and you get me out successfully, I’ll give you a three-month trial period.” 

“That’s… more generous than I expected,” Finch replied, relief clouding his voice. 

“I like puzzles, Mr. Finch, and you’ve just become an intriguing one.” 

“You should know that if you join me, we’ll probably both end up dead.” 

“The same as with the CIA,” John said with a shrug. “You said you wouldn’t ask me to kill?” 

“Not unless it’s necessary to save the life of an innocent,” Finch explained. 

“Fair enough. You have a first aid kit here?” 

“I don’t know. This was Nathan’s place.” 

John took ten minutes to search the building, finding an ancient first aid kit with expired painkillers. It had some gauze, though, and a little medical tape to hold it to Finch’s neck that probably wouldn’t lose its stickiness in the time it took to get to the hospital. 

“I expect you’ll try to bridge the gap of knowledge between us, seeing as I know far more about you than even you realize, but you must understand, Mr. Reese, that I’m a very private person.” 

“We’ll see,” John muttered. “Let’s go.” He grabbed Finch’s elbow and dragged him to his feet. 

“I own a private clinic upstate,” Finch declared as they reached the street, pulling his arm free of John’s grip despite the pain it must have caused him. He produced a money clip and handed it to John. “Get a pair of burner phones, non-consecutive numbers. I’ll be at the car,” he added, indicating a sleek black town car three blocks away, the uniformed driver standing at attention beside his door. He had a military stance, and John assumed he doubled as a bodyguard for Finch. 

“You’re going to walk that far with your injury?” John asked, fingering the money in his hand, counting. $2000, handed over as if it were nothing. 

“Get the phones,” Finch ordered, turning away, the discussion over. John memorized the plates and went to get the phones, sure that the car would be gone when he returned but knowing he’d look it up later. 

. 

. 

. 

To John’s surprise, the car, and Finch, awaited him when he returned with the phones, a few energy bars, and two bottles of water. He slid onto the leather seat beside Finch and allowed the driver to close his door for him. The privacy screen was already in place. 

“Eat,” he ordered Finch, giving him a bar and a bottle of water, taking the others for himself. “You’re going to collapse if you don’t get calories in you to counteract the adrenaline of surviving the explosion.” 

Finch grumbled to himself but started eating when John refused to give him the phones until he did so. He shrugged off the cash John tried to return with a disdainful eyebrow, already at work doing something with the phones. 

“Consider that a down payment for your services,” he said. “I’ll arrange for an advance once I’m out of the hospital,” he added. “Would three months be acceptable?” 

“You might be wasting your money,” John observed, his eyes tracking the streets and turns as well as Finch’s reflection in the glass. “I could just take it and run.” 

“In all my time researching and observing you, Mr. Reese, I have come to the conclusion that you are a man of integrity with a keen moral compass. This money is a sign of my faith in your willingness to _contemplate_ a future without the CIA. If you don’t think my extraction plan is feasible, or if after the trial period you aren’t satisfied with the job, I will supply you with funds and an airtight cover and send you away with my blessing. If, however, you decide that my venture is worthy of your particular skills, loyalty and dedication, I will make sure you never want for anything, be it money, or anything money can acquire.” 

“What I am offering,” Finch continued, “is a purpose. The job is incidental to that.” 

John took a breath, letting it out slowly. 

“All you’ve ever wanted is to protect people, John,” Finch said, resting a hand on John’s arm, the first physical contact between then aside from John examining his wound when they were at the library. Despite knowing that the deliberate use of John's first name was a tactic to gain his emotional trust, John found it working. “I have a way to grant you that wish.” 

John felt Finch’s voice resonate through him as if he were speaking directly to his very soul. “You sound like a religious zealot without the religion,” John murmured after a long moment of thought. How could a complete stranger know him so well? How could he unearth John’s deepest desires and most hidden hungers? 

John turned his head to meet Finch’s eyes. 

“How long have you been watching and observing me?” 

“I became aware of you in 2002 after the mission in Tikrit,” Finch said without hesitation. “I’ve followed your career with varying degrees of interest ever since.” He raised his hand to keep John from speaking. “Once I learned that the CIA was interested in you, I researched your history and life before 2002 so I would have that knowledge before they erased it. I know everything a man can learn from files and reports. I look forward knowing you as a person.” 

“Why should I trust you?” 

Finch attempted to shrug and winced. “You shouldn’t, not at first, but my promises from before stand. I will never lie to you or ask you to kill. I will not make you choose between your work and those you love.” 

“You mean —“ John broke off, not sure he wanted to consider the implications of Finch’s statement. 

“If you and Jessica choose to rekindle your relationship, I will assist you in extracting her from her current situation,” Finch declared. “I will create a new identity for her, safe from anyone who would harm her. All I need is her permission and your agreement.” 

John felt his entire world shift. For Finch to offer — 

The offer alone was more than John could hope for. But for Jessica to be safe, to be happy, to be alive and well and even in contact with him… He shut his eyes to keep the tears from breaking free. 

“What about _your_ fiancee?” John asked after twenty miles of silence. Finch gasped, startling awake. John apologized but repeated his question. 

“I don’t know,” Finch said softly, his voice sad. “I haven’t decided.” 

John nodded to himself. “Rest, Finch. We can worry about that after you’ve seen the doctors.” 

. 

. 

. 

John stayed with Finch long enough to assure himself that he would be taken care of by the doctors and staff at his clinic — under the name Harold Hawkeye. John thought about warning him that using a bird theme and the same first name over and over was just looking to be caught, but on second thought he realized Finch must know. It wasn’t his job to make sure Finch’s identities were secure. Not yet, anyway. Once Finch proved himself and John worked for him, it might become a different story. 

Rather than allowing Finch’s driver to bring him back to the city, he stole a car out of someone’s driveway a few miles from the hospital and abandoned it in favor of a different car at the second rest stop he passed. 

Once back at the CIA safe house he made excuses about avoiding the government mooks sent after Ingram. Neither Kara nor Mark said anything. Kara had taken almost as long to get back as John had, though she’d been out tailing Ingram’s ex-wife until the woman got the call that Ingram was dead, and Mark simply itched to be overseas again where they were all safer. 

Twelve hours later he was on a plane, Finch’s phone and cash hidden in a cache in New York before he returned to the safehouse. He didn’t want anything connecting them available. He wouldn’t put it past Kara or Mark to go through his things, just like he occasionally went through theirs. Professional hazard. 

When John and his group arrived in Dubai after finishing their mission in Spain, he received a new cover identity. Deep cover, apparently, as it was much more detailed than usual. His assignment: Get close to a particular oil magnate and find out if he was selling secrets to ISIS. Kara would ingratiate herself with the man’s business partner, and they’d be out of contact for a month, unless Mark intervened or they ended up at the same function. 

On his fourth day as Jim Bartholomew, a bike messenger handed him a plain manila envelope and sped away before he could sign for it. Inside was a single sheet of paper outlining Jim’s new account in the Cayman Islands. A handwritten note, unsigned, said: _Three months, as promised._

John’s mind briefly boggled at the number of zeros, but he quickly controlled himself. Mr. Finch had come through with the money — far more than John would have expected, even from a secretive, alias-wearing billionaire intent on hiring an agent away from the CIA for his as yet unspecified purposes. 

He burned the paper and waited for the extraction plan. 

It never came. 

They finished up a week early in Dubai, took a day of R &R in Hong Kong, and flew to their next assignment. 

On Halloween John was captured by enemy insurgents outside San Paulo and shoved in a hole in the ground. A remarkably _neat_ hole. He dug into the walls with his hands, finding steel and concrete where he expected roots and rocks. The insurgents dragged a clanging cover into place, and John recognized the sign of a bomb shelter when he managed to unearth enough of the wall to find the hidden door with a bird carved into it. He took the hint and locked himself inside. 

The missiles hit three hours later. 

. 

. 

. 

John Reese, newly dead, newly free, arrived in New York in the back of an eighteen-wheeler bringing solar panels from a factory in Arizona. He slipped out at the weigh-station just inside the state line and hitched his way to Ithaca. From there he stopped at the clinic he’d gone to with Finch, only to find no record of the man in any of the databases, paper or digital. He dug around in half-a-dozen others with no luck before giving up and moving towards the city. 

His first stop was the phone and cash he’d gotten back in September. His second was a cheap motel where he could shave and shower and make himself presentable. His third was the first menswear store he found — he had an inkling that Finch would prefer him in a suit than the jeans and t-shirt he’d been wearing to blend in on his trek cross country. His fourth was another cache where he acquired a gun and several other parts of his necessary personal arsenal. 

Within five minutes of turning on the phone, a nondescript black town car pulled up beside him and the driver got out to hold the door open for him. 

“Our employer would like a word with you,” the man declared firmly. 

John recognized Finch immediately when the driver let him out near a bench under the Brooklyn Bridge. He sauntered towards his new employer, taking his time to observe everything around him. 

“Welcome back to New York, Mr. Reese,” Finch said without standing. John sat easily and studied the other man. 

“How’s your neck?” 

“I avoided spinal fusion surgery by mere hours,” Finch answered. “I owe you a debt for getting me to treatment as quickly as you did.” 

“You’re welcome.” 

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Finch reached into his coat pocket and produced a photograph of a young black man. He handed it to John. 

“His name is Morgan Miller. He’s a short order cook at a popular diner in Brooklyn. Sometime very soon he will be involved in a violent crime, either as the victim or perpetrator. Your job will be to figure out which and save the intended victim.” 

“That’s all we have to go on?” John flipped the photo over to see a work and home address written down, as well as a girlfriend’s name and address. 

“I received his number just as my driver pulled up beside you. I’ll have more information once I return to my base of operations. Meanwhile, I think you should begin your investigations by finding him in person.” 

Finch handed him an envelope. “Cash, IDs, passports, and credit cards for three aliases,” he explained. “There’s also a phone and bluetooth headset. My number’s the only one in the address book. If you need anything else in terms of equipment or gear, let me know and I’ll be sure you get it.” 

John removed the phone and headset, then stuffed the envelope in a pocket. “How often do you expect contact?” 

“As often as necessary, Mr. Reese. Mr. Miller’s safety is the most important item on your agenda at the moment. I’ll call you with any relevant information I’m able to find.” 

John nodded and stood. He extended a hand to Finch, who’d gotten slowly to his feet, still moving stiffly and gingerly almost two months post ferry bombing. 

“I look forward to seeing what the next three months brings, Finch. I hope I like the job.” 

“As do I, Mr. Reese,” Finch responded. “As do I.” 

. 

. 

. 


End file.
